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Focus

Focus, or Focus 580, was WILL Radio's flagship talk program from 1981 until 2014. David Inge was the host from 1981 until his retirement in 2012. Always engaging, the program acted as a resource for citizens to directly question politicians and candidates as well as keep up on the arts, science, health, and even the latest from well-known novelists.

The Focus archive below offers thousands of great interviews and serves as a time capsule and a great resource for researchers and those just curious about how influential people spoke of important topics as they were happening.

Topic: Books and Reading

How do we explain the willingness of one person to sacrifice for another? People will put the interests of family ahead of their own. But biologist Edward O. Wilson says more important in human development has been the advancement of the group, even those members who don’t share our genes. E. O. Wilson talks about his new book "The Social Conquest of Earth." The book explores the biological roots of human culture.

We’ll explore the life and times of one of baseball’s most eccentric personalities, Bill Veeck. Many will remember him for all of the wacky things he did to get people to the ball park. But this one-time owner of the Chicago White Sox had a serious impact on the game, introducing innovations we now take for granted. He was also an early advocate for the inclusion of black players. Our guest will be Paul Dickson, author of the new biography "Bill Veeck: Baseball’s Greatest Maverick."

A plane crashes, a bridge collapses, and our first impulse is to blame design. Henry Petroski has been studying catastrophic failure for a long time and he says there is always a human element to be considered. The Duke University professor of Engineering will discuss his new book To Forgive Design: Understanding Failure which looks at the ways that people and machines come together in ways designers never anticipated until it was too late.

Why are some nations rich and others poor? Many explanations have been offered: culture, geography, even weather. But MIT economist Daron Acemoglu says what matters most are the political and economic institutions made by people. We’ll hear more about the root causes behind success and failure and talk about what might be done to build widespread prosperity.

Northwestern University Sociologist Gary Alan Fine has been studying rumors for over 35 years. He began by looking at the ways rumors affected race relations and made it so difficult for blacks and whites to get together. In his more recent work, he has looked at rumors that deal with international politics. He says rumors provide access to what people believe and the beliefs they keep hidden. Fine will share some ideas from his book "The Global Grapevine: Why Rumors of Terrorism, Immigration and Trade Matter."

The Statue of Liberty is one of America’s most powerful symbols, yet when it arrived in crates, no one could have imagined just how powerful it would become. We’ll get the story of the small group of French intellectuals who decided to offer a tribute to American liberty and of the uphill fight for American support. Our guest will be historian Edward Berenson, author of the new book "The Statue of Liberty: A Transatlantic Story."

Toi Derricotte, professor of English at the University of Pittsburgh, is the author of five books of poetry and has won a number of awards for her work, including two Pushcart Prizes. She is also the co-founder of Cave Canem, a workshop and retreat for African-American poets. We’ll talk about her memoir “The Black Notebooks” based on two decades of journal keeping and her most recent poetry collection “The Undertaker’s Daughter,” a book that looks back on her childhood in an abusive home. This interview was recorded on April 4, 2012

At the time of his death, Chiang Kai-shek was widely viewed as a brutal dictator, a failed military leader, and the man who lost the mainland to Mao Zedong. Jay Taylor says that was once his assessment too, but after doing research on the life of the Chinese leader, Taylor says he says he came to see Chiang as a complex figure--not the complete villain the West sees nor the saint long revered in Taiwan. We’ll rebroadcast an interview with Jay Taylor author of "The Generalissimo."

Most of Africa’s farmers are so poor they can’t grow enough to feed their families year round. In January of 2011 a group of Kenyan farmers decided to take a chance--joining the One Acre Fund, a social enterprise set up to help some of Africa’s most neglected people. The hope was that they could feed their families for the year, and have a bit left over to sell. Roger Thurow brings us the story of a farm community on the brink of change, the subject of his book "The Last Hunger Season."